“Grown men do not need leaders.” – Edward Abbey

Hat tip to Survival Blog

This is the final installment in my fictional treatment of a state making a break from the union.  I think we are increasingly closer to this becoming a reality.  BB

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”

~ Abraham Lincoln, (speech in Congress January 1848)

Idaho started the ball rolling and seceded from these united States. A total dissolution of America quickly followed as schisms and fissures erupted across North America. The collapse of the Mexican government caused a tidal wave of immigration to wash in to the southwestern portions of the former country. The great financial collapse of the world economy centered on the fiscal and monetary mischief in DC and Wall Street added yet more fuel to the fire. To tarnish the American reputation even more, hundreds of thousands of American troops were left stranded and penniless around the globe as the economic meltdown in America reduced the dollar to Zimbabwean valuations. To make matters worse, the government in DC instituted blanket loyalty oaths as a precursor for repatriation of returning soldiers who had managed to get home. This in turn caused entire National Guard and reserve units to return to their homes and assist in the buildup of forces in those states to fight the various doomed attempts by the central government to bring the rebellious states to heel.

The US followed in the footsteps of every other empire; corruption, decay and imperial overreach both at home and abroad. The District of Columbia still maintains a tenuous rump government known as the United States Socialist Republic (USSR) in control of the New England/Virginia states but power brownouts/blackouts, food shortages and insurgent activity have caused ambitions to whither to reunite the nation. Rumors of gulags, reeducation camps, oppressive domestic population controls and blanket censorship remain a common narrative for refugees escaping from the USSR. Repeated military strikes and adventures to bring the nation back to its original 2009 configuration failed and consequently, managed to cause the divisibility to exponentially expand. Total combat losses for USSR forces are unofficially estimated at 156,000 killed and wounded and a half-million missing in action. Excepting attempts by USSR guerillas to form pockets of resistance and insurrection, the entire effort has failed. There is some speculation FSA and Alaskan acquisition of nuclear devices on former US bases within their respective borders caused the USSR to pause and retreat but this remains unconfirmed.

The country has fractured into both natural and uneasy alliances. The west coast states formed a tight Green Coalition alliance in what is now Pacifica. Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Montana and Nevada have formed the Free State Alliance (FSA) confederation with very close relations with the Alaska Republic. An immense brain-drain from Pacifica to the FSA has resulted from the ecotopian experiment. The Dakotas remain on the fence as to whether they will join them or sign on with the Midwestern Alliance. The Lakota Sioux will remain their own nation regardless. The American South and Southwest are still in the throes of a multi-sided civil war. Hawaii has reverted back to its roots with the inauguration of King Kamehameha VI and the annexation of all non-Hawaiian property back to the native islanders.

Quebec has broken away and fighting remains sporadic in the western Canadian provinces as the national government continues to press for its supremacy over the rebel Canadian states in the west. There are reports of insurgent materiel and support from the Free State Alliance to British Columbia but these reports remain unsubstantiated.

Mexico has splintered into approximately ten separate states with alliances between the various 31 states that comprised Mexico ebbing and flowing on a daily basis. While the USSR maintain strict drug prohibition, the decriminalization of drug laws in Pacifica and the Free State Alliance has significantly weakened the strength of the Mexican drug cartels to finance their activities.

Fears of meddling on the part of China, Russia and Middle Eastern states have appeared to be exaggerated as those nations grapple with their own economic and social collapse difficulties.

The rapid expansion of oil drilling unfettered by confiscatory taxation and regulatory nonsense from DC has caused an economic boom that may prove to leave both the Alaska Republic and the FSA as the North American “Tigers” economically.

“Good morning, Governor.”

“Good morning, John.”

“Ten years ago, I suspect no one would have seen this transpire the way it has. No one would have suspected that the map of America would be this different. Do you think that this has been the outcome the Founders would have wanted?”

“Hamilton would be apoplectic but I suspect that Jefferson would be pleased and, of course, Tom Paine and Sam Adams would see this as inevitable. Why it took so long for the rotten structure to sunder itself, I will never know. Mind you, I did not come into office anticipating this chain of events.”

“Has it been a rough ride for Idaho and the FSA?”

“Quite frankly, we sensed that there was nothing easy about the fateful decision to get DC out of our state and out of our lives. I was embarking on a journey that my great-great-great grandfather witnessed in South Carolina in 1860 and we were praying for better results. To say that we were stepping into a void is an understatement. Not everyone in the state agreed with our course of action but I was convinced the people hired me not only to represent them but to exercise my own moral compass and judgment much like the Founders when they seceded from the United Kingdom.

The death and destruction we suffered was tremendous as a result of both insurgents and US [now USSR] armed forces employed against us. Possibly the only thing that kept us from getting overwhelmed was the disproportionate number of US troops deployed overseas and the concomitant crisis where the currency collapse caused many of them to be stranded in Indian country abroad. That, of course, led to some bitterness. Idaho had a reputation as a rather well-armed bastion but the ensuing guerilla conflict against the Federal forces was far more than they anticipated. There were even several assassination attempts against me…”

“One of which you thwarted by killing the assassin yourself…”

“Well, I have always considered it sociopathic to outsource my self-defense to others so carrying a weapon was a daily routine even before the conflict…

I have to tell you that we would not have prevailed if other states such as Montana and Wyoming among others had not joined the fray. I have to say that the number of murdered civilians by Federal forces tipped the war in our favor. I can never mend those families but the massive indiscriminate firepower and total disregard for civilian casualties turned the tide against the Federal forces. I would think that the failures of military effectiveness in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been a consideration but the war on Americans in their own country became a very bitter contest. Federal units may have owned the roadways but once they started to step into the wilderness or hinterlands even in large formations they were picked apart and annihilated.”

“There are rumors of Federal forces still in Idaho and the FSA…”

“Very true but those incidents are getting more and more scarce as time passes. Ironically, after the major hostilities ceased nearly six months ago, almost half the Federal forces in the region deserted and joined us once we had enjoined a treaty for repatriation of families and guarantees against reprisals with the DC government during secret talks.”

“Why were the talks secret?”

“Six months into the conflict, currency collapses and corruption in DC had so stymied and hampered the war effort both here and abroad, they had no choice but to negotiate but they dare not do so in public or they would have lost electoral support and you know where a politicians’ bread is buttered. We got plenty of concessions and I was able to look the President in the eye and tell him: ‘No, you can’t!’. We could have avoided the bloodshed if we had simply been granted a civil divorce per our request in the first place.”

“How would you characterize life in Idaho and the FSA now?”

“Life is difficult especially for those who have lost family, homes and fortunes. But we are rebuilding and we are free. We now have our own private banking system employing real gold & silver to back the specie. We have shut down and sold all Federal government property and are currently starting the second year cycle to bid out all Federal and State lands to private individuals and investors. There is zero government money going into the education system.

Each of the Confederation members in the FSA, and Alaska for that matter, are experimenting with different levels of state governance. In Idaho and Montana, for instance, all the timber interests subscribe to a private consortium for firefighting. Would you invest in a timber enterprise that did not seek to protect their own investment? So we think the incentives are more reality-based instead of the perverse and corrupting laws DC forced upon us.

We have left it up to the counties and subsidiary units to figure out what works best. The Federal Register has no weight here and all the courts are being privatized. The only gun law remaining on the books is if the gun is used in the commission of a crime. We have also imposed term limits on all politicians to one term in their lifetime.

Government is a nasty habit and it will take more than a year to kill the addiction but we feel that the competitive laboratories the states are creating will give us a running start to find the best path. This is the greatest failure of DC rule; it allowed no freedom of choice in so many areas of our lives. We are now free to choose, fail and prosper. We don’t have all the answers. For instance, we have eliminated all our drug laws on the books and have decriminalized possession, sale and production. Utah has not, so we will see how that works out.

The remaining part-time politicians in the statehouse are even offered personal bounties for reducing or eliminating budget items. I would much rather give a politician five percent of a one million dollar program than spend the money on the program in to perpetuity. We are also basing their salaries on an inverse ratio. In other words, the more money they vote to spend out of taxpayer’s pockets, the lower their salaries and compensation. Would I like to close the doors to the statehouse permanently? Sure, but we aren’t there yet.”

“Governor, one term means you are out next year. What are your plans?”

“To mind my own business.”

“When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

By popular demand, this is Part II of “Good Morning, Mr. President”.  Ten years ago, secession was a four letter word but now more people are giving it serious thought than I ever seen before.  Enjoy. -BB

Mr. President, this is Governor Lutrin and I am calling on behalf of the nation of Idaho and the new Inland Confederation.”

“Good evening, Governor Lutrin, I was hoping we could discuss a resolution to the latest…unpleasantness.”

“Mr. President, I wanted to pass on to you my personal assurance on the territorial integrity of the remaining states in the former union known as these United States. The departure of Utah, Wyoming, Montana and eastern Washington into the newly revived Articles of Confederation was a happenstance our exit did not anticipate. We have no intention whatsoever of seeking additional members although I suspect your behavior has provided a tremendous incentive to cause more states to spin off from the orbit of DC. I would like to recommend the creation of a Summit to establish a peaceful reconciliation between the divorced parties to normalize trade and diplomatic relations.”

“Governor, your actions have caused a cascading effect that has effectively opened national fissures that are difficult to contain.”

“I would also like to offer my concerns on repatriating the surviving members of the 82d Airborne Division and elements of the XVIII Airborne Corps. Both battalions of the 19^th Special Forces Group (Airborne) are remaining in the Confederation of their own accord to husband the creation of our own national militia. The critically wounded soldiers will receive the best care we can offer through their recovery and eventual return to your country. We have already dispatched the surviving 35 paratroopers to the border for return. I am hopeful we can sustain the agreed terms of the ceasefire and avoid any bloodshed in the future.”

“That was the most lopsided defeat of American arms on our soil since…”

“Sir, we initiated no aggression against these United States and simply did what we tend to do best when our backs are against the wall. We are a rural nation with urban pockets and the character of these states tend to be rather impatient with being pushed around and bullied. Consider us as a porcupine that can do you no harm unless you visit violence on it. You can say that the fury your armed forces experienced was a century of pent-up frustration and aggression. Their sacrifice and bravery is acknowledged.”

“The US is the most sophisticated and powerful military power on the face of the planet. If I simply picked up the phone and called for air strikes or military reprisals, we could bring you to your knees.”

“That would be inadvisable to visit that kind of bloodshed on peaceful people. That particular scenario is not working very well for you in the Middle East. I would also hope severe condemnations from civilized nations around the world would grace your desk. I can promise you that we will initiate a number of retaliatory measures which require no military action on our behalf that will cause a modicum of grief to your administration”

“Such as…”

“Inspired by a terrific novel called Enemies Foreign and Domestic, we happen to have a complete database of all current physical addresses of all FLEAs (Federal Law Enforcement Agent) in the US available for broadcast release on the internet when we choose.”

“I have filed a formal complaint with the United Nations Security Council to issue an injunction against your secession.”

“We cannot tell you who to associate with but we are not nor will we be members of the United Nations. We already have formal recognition from 55 nations including Alaska, Switzerland, Russia and France where we are establishing formal consular offices. We have formalized the transfer of all nuclear weapons and military facilities on Confederation soil and will reimburse the US Government for their costs after the auditors have finished calculating the total Confederation tax bill bled to the rulers on the Potomac since 1913. Unfortunately, I suspect the books may not balance in your favor so receipt of the funds in actual remuneration may not materialize.”

“Governor, that is clear and simple theft of US Government property to include the multibillion dollar facilities.”

“Mr. President, taxation is theft and the weight of Federal encroachment on the states has been enormous. Once DC started to behave like an occupation government, all the natural forces seeking remedy and escape started to form the perfect storm of events that liberated the Confederation from the former US configuration. We will conduct a full accounting of the valuation and match it to the previously mentioned audit. We have no Federal Reserve and the Confederation will be relying on free banking to mint a new currency or currencies backed by hard metal. What little government we have will be financed through a one percent tariff at the borders.”

“Governor, how can a government run on a one percent tax?”

“Mr. President, that is the original percentage of the income tax in 1913. We have already cashiered 98% of government workers in most of the states in the last two weeks. This includes the former Federal employees who chose to remain here. Each employee received the equivalent of five years salary in gold drawn from the caged IRS account in Boise. They are among the last people we hope will ever get government aid in the state. We have a unique agenda, we intend to shrink government over time and if the future allows us to zero it completely, so be it.”

“That is impossible, how will people survive without government support and protection?”

“Like free men, Mr. President, like free men.”

Submitted by usarmyretiredguy.

Killing With Kindness:  Affirmative Action and the Destruction of Military Effectiveness

The femanization of the US Army is central to the collectivist agenda in their endeavor to take control of our country.  The Army Equal Opportunity Program (EO) began in the 1970’s is a vital mechanism of this deconstruction.  It may be one of the boldest and least recognized social engineering agendas in recent memory.   Information concerning the EO program is readily available via the internet and from my personal experience as an Army Command EO Advisor.  The object of this essay is not to diminish the contributions of black or other minority Americans but to show they, too, have been done a disservice by abandoning the notion of merit and color-blindness.

The EO program had its beginnings in the early 1970s with the dictate to address racial and ethnic tensions within the ranks. The initial directive for Army leadership was to identify the cause of racial strife permeating the conscript army.  Many studies, reports, and surveys later concluded the underlying reason for the strife was the actual or perceived issue of discrimination.  Amazingly enough, no one thought to consider the conflict in Viet Nam and the majority of soldiers dying were not minorities.  They were poor conscripts, without the influence necessary to avoid enforced servitude in the Army.  The statistics of casualties do not support the conclusion of a racial incongruity as the root cause of the purported discontent in the army.

American Casualties by Race:

The actual casualties indicate minorities were only a small percentage of the overall numbers.  This leads one to conclude another agenda spurred the establishment of the EO program.  Simply, it was a crucial first step in feminizing the army in the pursuit of the collectivist agenda.  The basis for establishing the program is not significant; the implementation is the critical elements we must understand.

I had tours in two unique assignments; they provide me a distinctive background on how the collectivist agenda is breaking down the army’s masculinity.  These two assignments were as an army recruiter, and an Equal Opportunity Advisor at the General Officer level.

It is essential to remember the published purpose of the EO program.  The purported goal is achieving racial equality for all members of the army.  This dovetails with the mission of the US Army Recruiting Command.  Recruiting Command teaches its recruiters the ultimate goal is to make the army look like the civilian population, and the EO program directly supports this mission.  If the stated goal is the genuine mission then the EO program is an abject failure. The racial overtones were soon supplemented by a desire to ensure the Army sought gender equality creating a lethal cocktail that would severely damage combat effectiveness.

How can the vaunted EO program be a failure with its vast oversight and social engineering directives?  Remember when the program started?   What was the makeup of the army in the 1970s and where are we now after nearly four decades in the pursuit of racial/gender harmony and equality.  The earliest substantive data available is from FY 83.  The draft ended in 1973 providing the army 10 years with oversight to attain the EO goals.  I said the EO program failed to achieve its goal of equality and mirroring our society.

Statistically, very little has changed concerning the racial makeup of the army.  We are still within 5 percentage points of Whites and 4% of Blacks after all these years.  The total number of black officers has marginally increased during this time period.  Oddly though, the greatest increase is in the Warrant Officer field, not the commissioned officer field.

According to the US Census Bureau, the Army does not reflect the two largest racial populations in the country.  Whites represent 75.1% and Black or African America represents 12.3% of the population.  These numbers indicate a wide disparity from the population and the active duty army. So then, what is the true purpose of the EO program in the Army if not racial/gender harmony and equality?  I told you in the beginning; the ultimate goal of the program is the feminization of our military making them ineffective to fight the collectivist’s agenda as they attempt to take over our country without firing a single shot.

The collectivists are winning the war of control by making the army ineffective to stop domestic enemies.  I am not saying our army is an ineffective combat force outside of our borders.  They are still the best soldiers in the world when not restrained by the civilians appointed/anointed over them.  The problem is the civilians appointed/anointed are the same political pedigree that initiated the EO program with the singular goal of neutering them.  They must eliminate them as a force capable of protecting the citizenry from an internal enemy.  What tools are the collectivists/social engineers using to take the masculinity from our combat forces and making them no more capable than the sheeple they are sworn to protect against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC?

The Army EO program permeates every layer of the army, from the top to bottom.  Remember the political officers of the old Soviet Union, the zampolits?  Their assignment was to spread the communist dogma, train troops, and report on commanders who were not faithful to party doctrine in the USSR.  Welcome to the Army EO program.  The Army has these social engineering commissars at every level of command.  They go under the name of Equal Opportunity Advisors, Equal Opportunity Representatives, and Program Managers.  The majority of these people do not even realize they are tools of the collectivist agenda.  These individuals provide the oversight, training (indoctrination), and reporting on all aspects of the program.  Their underlying function is the intimidation of all members of the army, ensuring strict adherence to guidance from the collectivist masters.  The bullying of soldiers is possible by making each soldier answerable to the same level of punishment as an alleged perpetrator.  If they fail to report ANY known or suspected violation of policy this is the threat held over them.  How would this play out in the civilian world?  You know or suspect a neighbor is guilty of a crime and fail to report it for whatever reason: fear of reprisal, complacency, or simply unsure of the facts, you would face stiff penalties along with the perpetrator of the crime.  A soldier can be convicted and sent to prison along with the actual perpetrator of the alleged crime.  This is what a soldier faces from the vaunted EO program.  Might this instill a fear of the system and the commissars appointed over them?

How do they inculcate soldiers to continue to support the program and report violators?  One strategic tool available to EO personnel for this noxious social engineering is the Consideration of Others Program.  The Consideration of Others Program is mandatory for all commanders. It should be tailored to the specific needs of local commands. Commanders will implement “Consideration of Others” training down to detachment, platoon, or squad level. The EO program’s execution effectively seeks to indoctrinate soldiers from the highest to the lowest level of the army.  What is the stated goal of the program?  Consideration of Others program is a tool which focuses on the vital linkage between the individual soldier and his or her role as a member of a military team. The capability of each of your soldiers to recognize that their attitudes, actions, and words affect others in the unit; and their willingness to take responsibility for those actions, and words- to the point of changing them when necessary -is what Consideration of Others is all about. A primary result of the EO program is a soldier can no longer simply state something they believe, they must consider the consequences of the statement, right or wrong, on their career.  What if someone does not like what is said?  Will they file a complaint?  Will an investigator judge the soldier fairly?  This makes for combat ineffectiveness instead of the stated goal of unit cohesion and combat effectiveness.  Leaders now have to weigh everything said to ensure it does not violate someone’s sensibilities, extremely dangerous for a force tasked to protect the populace from its enemies.  The program SOUNDS good, which is an underlying trait of a good subversion tactic in pursuit of the goal of minimizing the force’s ability to react to the enemy.  Let’s look at some of the topics of this great program the social engineers deem appropriate in maintaining a combat ready force.

I am going to address the top level of the Consideration of Other’s topics and provide the reader with the link to peruse the manual in detail.  First, let’s look at how the Army describes the program.

“Consideration of Others is those actions that indicate a sensitivity to and regard for the feelings and needs of others and an awareness of the impact of one’s own behavior on them…”

The key here is social engineers desire all soldiers to be sensitive to others.  How can we believe this sensitivity does not affect combat effectiveness or have long-lasting effects on the force?  During past wars, soldier training taught them to hate the enemy to prevent hesitation in combat and possible debilitating grief when faced with taking another human life.  This can be a factor in the difference between the levels of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) of past conflicts compared to the statistics of current combat veterans.  Today’s soldier must feel first and react second.  The enemy is not truly a bad guy, simply misguided.  What teaching tool do EO personnel use to achieve sensitivity to others, enemies included?  A primary tool is the Consideration of Others Program.  The tasks trained include: alcohol and drug abuse, Equal Opportunity complaint procedures and identification of extremism and extremist organizations, among others

On the surface some of these classes may seem acceptable.  This is how the collectivists’ sell a package to the populace in general, and the Army in particular.  If parts of a program seem innocent enough, acceptance is much easier for the whole enterprise, including the aspects to adjust a culture.  Remember the story of the frog.  One can place a frog in a pot of cold water and slowly bring it to a boil.  The frog will happily stay in the pot until it boils to death because the change was gradual.  The collectivist engineers are accomplishing the same task with our army.  They are slowly castrating its collective manhood in their pursuit of a feminized force, no longer able to identify the domestic enemy or protect the populace from the creeping transformations of America to a socialist state.

The main problem the EO agenda faces is the simmering resentment of the ranks who are constantly battered with the agenda.  What do they do with these individuals?  The last four decades are replete with soldiers who failed to swallow the collectivist scheme, hook, line, and sinker.

In response to these individuals, the EO program and commanders who have attached themselves to the program actively seek to punish the non-conformists.  One may not agree with the current fight but generally cannot discount their capabilities as a fighting force.  The greatest amongst them are the ones who are not susceptible to collectivist agenda.  These warriors are minimized at best, court-martialed at worst.  Our illustrious government/media complex attacks these warriors relentlessly with a vengeance and the complete backing of spineless members of congress.  Some of these same congresspersons publicly condemn them without a shred of evidence and show no remorse when proved liars.  These warriors are left to defend themselves against an army of lawyers, press, and public opinion with their one court appointed public defender.  If they desire better representation, it is up to their families and friends to bear the cost.  It is a simple collectivist tactic: identify an enemy, marginalize them and then destroy them.  They actually make them the enemy.  So what happens next?

The survival of our country may depend on the Army’s leadership recognizing it has been duped and reversing course.  If they do not realize our country is facing its greatest threat from a collectivist agenda then I fear doom for our future generations.  Our children’s children will fight the next battle for freedom on our soil because we gave it away without a whimper.

“Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks.  Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools.  And their grandchildren are once more slaves.”

~D.H. Lawrence 1922

© usarmyguyretired 2009

A research team out of the UK has released a paper examining whether certain locals can feed themselves through local food production.

Here is an excerpt from the release

“As an interesting aside, when I showed an early draft of this to my supervisor at University of Plymouth, he looked at me across the table with a serious look and said “but Rob, this is how wars start”.  After being somewhat taken aback, I responded that actually, it was when communities entered periods of food insecurity and economic meltdown without having done this thinking sufficiently in advance that wars tended to start.  ‘Can Totnes Feed Itself’ is not about isolation, exclusion and the putting up of barriers, rather it is about the building of resilience, the building of surge protectors into our highly networked and highly vulnerable world.  This paper holds not the seeds of a return to feuding feudalism, but rather the seeds of a more localised, resilient and skilled world where we have a far stronger relationship with our food from, as Tim Lang so poetically puts it, “from farm to fart”.”

As an outdoorsman, fisherman and hunter, as well as someone who does appreciate non-poisonous drinking water, the somewhat natual conflict between my obvious desire to recoup my soul via the outdoor pursuits and my obvious belief in liberty and being free from onerous regulations has been somewhat difficult to overcome. As my readings and continued education in decentralization progressed, a razor has been applied to the Gordian knot of that conflict. The following is not a fully formed theory, but more of a “thought”. I recommend thinking while enjoying ethanol or other biofuels that have been aged in oak barrels. As Willaim Faulkner said “Civillization begins with distillation”.

The razor in question is the concept that localization of both government and industrial production both assures political liberty and a certain quality of life. Much as a small, constrained county government is more responsive to its citizens, locally owned industry and commerce is as well. As an example, consider the modern pratice of using cyanide heap leaching for copper. Under current Feral Government regulation, via the 1872 Mining Law, both the cyanide contaminated water and slag rock can be used as fill material. Now, any sentient human knows that cyanide is exceptionally toxic and that cyanide in the ground water supply is not by any means a good thing.

Recently, the US Supreme Court ruled that mine waste can be legally dumped into waterways. The mining company affected directly by the ruling,  Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp, is a subsidary of Northern Dynasty, in turn a subsidary of Anglo-American, a multinational mining conglomerate that once wholly owned the nation of Rhodesia. One may wonder where this essay is meandering, but consider this- would a local mine owner retain a legal department in order to contaminate his own drinking water? It makes sense for a large multinational, with management esconced in London, far removed the effects of both the regulation and the contamination, but is preposterous on its face when considering a locally owned operation.

Consider a locally owned timber company. Would the owner clear cut a drainage right to the bank, when he must face both the commercial salmon fisherman and the recreational guides at the local greasy spoon? Neither group is known for tact or restraint when their livihoods are threatened.

Much hay is made by the Greens concerning living wages. Who is better in tune with the wage rates for a given locale- a local business owner in competition for skilled labor, or a technocrat in Mordor on the Potomac trying to set a national “minimum wage”?

As I alluded to earlier, I have no concrete answers, but points to ponder. More thinking and ethanol consumption may be required tonight.

“When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power”

~ Alston Chase

I am sick to death of the economically illiterate environmental nonsense peddled in the media in an endless parade of bad thinking disguised as scientific discourse. The Green movement is a collectivist enterprise hell-bent on bending every knee in obeisance to a religious orthodoxy that will cripple the advancement of mankind and create third-world nations where first-world countries used to be, exponentially increasing infant mortality rates and reducing standards of living to make all of us look back on envy at the gold-plated living conditions of medieval serfs. The movement is a nasty brew of National Socialist “blood and soil” (see Anna Bramwells’s books), Marxist bromides and a child-like vision of how the universe works.

Central planning does not work. Larger entities that use force and coercion to make others do the right thing lead to national prison camps disguised as nation-states. Here’s a short quiz for you: grab the nearest envirus and ask him how would he suggest we improve the care and feeding of Mother Earth absent government intervention? He will splutter and get a very blank look in his vapid face as the synapses collapse and fail to function properly.

Use this rule of thumb: cost and benefit analysis will usually determine the economic efficacy of a given course of action. Prices are, among many attributes, the keenest indicator of scarcity or abundance of commodities or services. If recycling is such a great idea, why don’t they pay you to do it? If wind and solar energy are such ideal means to deliver power, why do they require massive subsidy and inevitably, the theft from private owners through eminent domain and other tools of economic oppression?

Speak truth to power because the Greens now have the upper hand. The government-media complex is now fully captive to the entire Green orthodoxy. Excepting shows like Bullshit! on Showtime, none questions the prevailing belief system; it is like a form of national psychosis although I feel the same way about the worship of the State. The environmental agenda is nothing less than a total renunciation of Western civilization and the requisite privileges of clean water, electricity, effective farming and a host of other modern conveniences.

The envirus views nature as a snapshot picture of the world frozen in time and unchanging; a static portraiture of life that possesses no adaptation and dynamism. Infantile views of nature which are most likely a result from having never tread upon it or lived in it. Rarely is the hunter or long-time ruralite seduced by the Disney visions of nature that dance in the heads of the Greens. A perspective further informed by the academic and media professionals whose worldview is shaped by a hive-like collectivist vision of human society in which all individuals are to be subordinated to the whims of what’s good for the herd as directed by omniscient strangers whose fatal conceit is that they are smarter than us so they know what is best for you.

Nature is cruel and dynamic. It is a daily massacre for the lame and the newborn. Vicious spasms of violence red in tooth and claw tempered by turns of weather that can kill and nourish in the same pastoral event. Most importantly, nature is capricious in the most practical sense: the complexity is so immense as to be almost incomprehensible to human cognition. Complexity theory has tried to capture the distillate of what appears to be random phenomenon but is actually a spontaneous order much like economic market forces. Which brings us to the cruelest joke of all on the Greens: they can’t possibly know what they are talking about.

Here’s the rub: there is no question of climate change, the riddle is to what extent man is a culprit. Once a given problem set has three or more variables, it becomes impossible to establish with any certitude correlative or causative connections between A and B and C. The global climate is a complex system far too large to isolate variables and know with pinpoint accuracy what makes it tick or respond to human influences. I don’t deny that humans have an impact on the climate but no one can prove to me what the extent is. No evidence emerges that the ice ages in medieval times were anthropogenic, they were simply within the observed cycle of cooling and warming that one would expect of a planetary ecosystem dependent on solar energy as a driver and engine of weather and life. There is a reason increased sunspot activity is coincident with warming trends. Man is not apart from nature, he is a part of nature. We are part of the infrastructure and no one can even address why carbon dioxide, if a pollutant, nourishes all earthly plant life excepting certain anaerobic moss. The government does not even want to have a discussion since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently muzzled one of its in-house climate skeptics.

Stand up to the Greens and call them on their idiocy. Question all their assumptions. Stand athwart their diktats and directives as they attempt to rule you as cattle. They are shutting down coal-fired plants by the dozen and seeking to bankrupt the nation by pursuing green technologies that the market has proven to be a technological & economic dead-end. Curiously, they object strenuously to the purest solar energy of all: nuclear energy which harnesses the power of the sun in a relatively clean fission package. One small ray of hope is the fact that the EPA will strangle and mangle all the emerging green technology. They will get all bureaucratically befuddled as the contesting envirus schisms like bird enthusiasts and wind generator proponents do battle. Pollution activists will discover the immense smog component of mass transit buses and the maintenance infrastructure. Electric car boosters will stand dumb-founded in their garages as the AC outlet fails to deliver power after the coal-fired grid is shut down through rolling brown-outs or blackouts. All done, of course, at taxpayer expense.

Under Obamunism, we have a wild ride ahead of us as the Green Reds at first have a terrific honeymoon with Middle America but soon discover the combination of economic illiteracy, scientific buffoonery and collectivist tyranny make for a lethal cocktail. It would be wonderful if we could just sit on the sidelines and observe the circus but the future of America is in the hazard. Indeed, the collectivists have other plans for us.

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

~ Philip K. Dick

Copyright @ 2009 William Buppert

“It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.” – John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756

A show of hands amongst you who believe that the government schools provide this form of education, or for that matter, any form?

This is a short fictional essay I wrote last year that piqued considerable reader interest. The deeper the Greater Depression (thanks Matt Bracken) becomes, the more evident the absolute lunacy of central planning and the leviathan state. It was followed by a number of other essays exploring secession. All comments are welcome, Bill.

“Good Morning, Governor, how might we…”

“Mr. President, I realize you are a busy man so let’s get down to brass tacks…we are calling the ball and withdrawing our support of your Administration and the Federal government in DC. Effective immediately, we have coordinated to place all outgoing receipts to the IRS in a caged account here in Boise…”

“Governor, you can’t do that…”

“Please don’t interrupt while I am speaking as we are from this point onward peers in the family of nations. I hope you have reviewed the diplomatic instruments we sent by courier last night to Department of State which delineates the terms of our divorce.”

“I did receive those and you have no earthly idea the can of whoop-…”

“Please, sir, maintain the decorum of these proceedings so we can move forward to an amicable separation. I give you my personal assurance on the safety and well-being of all Federal personnel we have detained for immediate repatriation to the remainder of these United States. Any non-law enforcement Federal personnel who wish to remain behind will be permitted to do so.”

“I hope you have thought through the consequences of what you are embarking on.”

“Mr. President, we have had over two hundred years to give the rulers on the Potomac a chance but that time has expired. Effective immediately, all so-called Federal lands now belong to the nation of Idaho and we will dispose of these lands at our leisure. In the interest of burying the hatchet, we will not seek compensation for the seizure, abuse and tenure of Federal practices on the aforementioned land and call the balance even.”

“Those are my lands, Governor…”

“In actuality, they belong to neither of us, sir. On to other business, I have alerted my National Guard forces to establish checkpoints at all the main arterials in and out of Idaho. All National Guard forces deployed overseas will return home in the next 48 hours. I would also caution you on the use of military force to convince Idaho and its citizens to forcibly return to the yoke of the Union. Idaho has a well-deserved reputation as a rather well-equipped state in firearms possession and use. As Yamamoto said, you may find a rifle behind every blade of grass.”

“Are you threatening the president of the United States?”

“No, sir, I am simply making an observation about the hazards of one country invading another.”

“You are land-locked, Governor and wholly dependent on federal subsidy for a great deal of employment and infrastructure in Idaho.”

“No longer, the tremendous tax burden across the spectrum formally imposed in our nation as a subject State in your country is now effectively terminated and we are going to unleash the free market to address all of our former shortcomings as a result of the overarching government supremacism practiced here before. In telephone conversations with my neighboring governors, we are on the verge of Confederation negotiations that will pave the way for Idaho embassies in British Columbia, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. We do intend on opening a consular office in DC as soon as we can ensure the diplomatic baggage containing sufficient weapons assures our safety in the greater DC metropolitan area for our diplomatic personnel.”

“Governor, what Constitutional right do you have to secede from the US?”

“Mr. President, the behavior you have exhibited toward the Constitution has been at best characterized by active neglect and abhorrence for the restraint on governance in the Bill of Rights. I am rather surprised you would resort to assuming the document in any way has weight in Washington, DC. I would suggest my rights extend as far as our ability to throw off what has become a government of occupation instead of cooperation. We resign, sir and wish to go in peace.”

“I will use every measure in my arsenal to force you back into the fold.”

“Mr. President, thank you for the heads-up but we have taken certain precautions to ensure that any rash measures on your part have a disproportionate impact in the DC/Virginia corridor. Please don’t press us on the issue. I would like to offer one more rather moderate important proposal to our future business. These United States as administered by DC are now essentially bankrupt. War on the world, out of control spending and borrowing, debt and deficit, non-funded future liabilities in the tens of trillions and a banking infrastructure rotten at every level has pushed the US to an economic abyss from which it cannot shrink. We will provide you a demonstration project of tiny government, free banking and a formerly enslaved citizenry unleashed to realize their potential with no government interference. We simply wish to go our own way untethered from the Remora Nation DC came to symbolize.”

“Governor, this conversation is over.”

“Good day, Mr. President.”

I am a occasional columnist at LRC and have appeared on a number of media outlets and time and again, folks have contacted me and urged me to start a blog. I have resisted because I was concerned about keeping it fresh and current. So here is my attempt to answer the call and maintain a semblance of interesting material on a weekly basis. I will be penning a fresh essay once or twice a week and making pithy observations as the ship of state sinks and we either break apart or turn in to the totalitarian gulag our rulers have been lusting after since time immemorial. I will be an intellectual gadfly toying with history, liberty, economics, philosophy and politics.

Your comments and support will help me steer the course the readers wish to head to. While I find writing the best way to improve and clarify my own thinking, if no one reads it, why publish?

So there it is, welcome aboard and put your seat harnesses on; we have a very bumpy ride ahead.

You will find the charter essay below…enjoy.

This is Bill Buppert and if you are reading this, you are the Resistance.

“War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. The machinery of government sets and enforces the drastic penalties; the minorities are either intimidated into silence, or brought slowly around by a subtle process of persuasion which may seem to them really to be converting them.”

-Randolph Bourne

War is the health of the state.  Randolph Bourne arrived at this conclusion near the beginning of the 20th century.  Smedley Butler later wrote in War is a Racket about the baleful special interest vectors that drive us to war.  We hear again and again that we owe our freedoms to the conduct of overseas adventures in other countries whether the wresting of Spanish colonies into our possession or the invasion of Europe during the War to Save Joseph Stalin (1939-45) to the modern era of American armed dominion over the planet.  I would suggest these are poor assumptions.  The next time someone makes one of these specious claims, simply ask them how the defeat of one totalitarian regime while aiding and abetting another noxious regime made America free?  Is the Cold War representative of the halcyon days of American individualism?

Most libertarians agree that the American government is colossal, oppressive and a slayer of freedom and liberty.  There are certainly domestic influences and causes for the enormous growth in the statist tilt of American governance and concentration of power.  The metamorphosis of an agrarian republic birthed in the violent dismissal of British rule to the Sovietized monstrosity we labor under today is the result of both domestic dynamics and the creation of the national security/garrison state to project power and influence overseas.  I would submit that war is the unacknowledged silent partner of the leviathan state.

How does a militarized foreign policy create a less free nation at home?  Let’s begin with a conflict most Americans can name but few can even place a date to:  World War One.  I would recommend Niall Ferguson’s book Pity of War as a signal starting point to rip asunder the veil of historical illiteracy and propaganda that has surrounded that sordid conflict.  Woodrow Wilson, one of the worst and most evil Presidents to grace that august den of thieves in the White House, promised in 1916 to never enter the European conflict and promptly started the machinations to steer us into the conflagration and militarize American society.  The more you learn about Wilson, the more you see he is the point of origin for so much of our national grief.  I have previously mentioned the American Protective League and its un-American activities in stifling, fining and jailing dissidents against Wilson’s war. Wilson also inaugurated the Committee on Public Information which even gave instructions for cartoonists and signed into law the Espionage and Sedition Acts.

Among the many notorious achievements Wilson managed was the Americanization of a fairly decentralized and devolved society.  This was the perennial missing link in formalizing the ultimate project of the Hamiltonian ambition:  the establishment of a permanent central government for whom the individual states were mere agents and bureaucratic subsidiaries.

State and regional pride in the absence of a national highway system and a fairly localized culture dominated the discourse of the then loosely knit united States.  It still took nearly a week or more to travel from coast to coast.  The government in DC did not have the consensus or the reach to influence the minor and major muscle movements that each state and its subset elements exercised and therefore the flavors and nuances of the regions retained localized habits and customs.  WWI ended that with the unifying message of an America in peril from the German threat to European stability and the need to make the world more like America.  In the process, these united States made the same critical error the Confederacy made in the War of Northern Aggression; by centralizing the war effort, any state sovereignty soon was lost to the overweening tendency to dictate top-down command economy nostrums and the resulting loss of subsidiary integrity at the lower echelonments.  For the first time in American history, state-originated troops deployed overseas en masse as American-flagged forces in a unified organization representing the “forces of democracy”.

A victory unprecedented for the statists who now had not only the domestic Progressive bandwagon (thanks in no small part to conservative folk-hero, Teddy Roosevelt) to provide the impetus to expand the role of central government in these united States but the creation of an external threat to forever change the face of the political calculus in the country.  The bond to the individual states had finally been effectively broken and suborned to a national identity established to homogenize and formalize the loyalties of the citizens to their political betters in DC.  1917 marked the birth of the national security/garrison state and the inauguration of the two-pronged domestic and foreign policy nexus to expand the size and reach of central government.

In addition, the central state also managed to soften the other primary target of their will to power:  the family.  Statists have worried through the ages that the bastion of the family was a fortress they could not breech.  Once the state could find a way to penetrate the family unit and influence the outcomes of behavior at an earlier age and replace the parents with the state, ultimate power would be fulfilled.  With tens of thousands of husbands and fathers deployed overseas, unprecedented numbers of women entered the workplace and the state’s tax base found another form of revenue. To wit:

The entry of the United States into World War I greatly increased the need for revenue and Congress responded by passing the 1916 Revenue Act. The 1916 Act raised the lowest tax rate from 1 percent to 2 percent and raised the top rate to 15 percent on taxpayers with incomes in excess of $1.5 million. The 1916 Act also imposed taxes on estates and excess business profits.

Driven by the war and largely funded by the new income tax, by 1917 the Federal budget was almost equal to the total budget for all the years between 1791 and 1916. Needing still more tax revenue, the War Revenue Act of 1917 lowered exemptions and greatly increased tax rates. In 1916, a taxpayer needed $1.5 million in taxable income to face a 15 percent rate. By 1917 a taxpayer with only $40,000 faced a 16 percent rate and the individual with $1.5 million faced a tax rate of 67 percent.

Another revenue act was passed in 1918, which hiked tax rates once again, this time raising the bottom rate to 6 percent and the top rate to 77 percent. These changes increased revenue from $761 million in 1916 to $3.6 billion in 1918, which represented about 25 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Even in 1918, however, only 5 percent of the population paid income taxes and yet the income tax funded one-third of the cost of the war.

The income tax funded part of the conflict despite its relative infancy.  Note the velocity of tax increases in a short span of time and the end of the conflict did not lower the marginal rates significantly.  The fetters to government interference in all aspects of American life were now released and the unlimited state began.  On that day in 1917 when America entered the global conflict, Alexander Hamilton wryly smiled from his august office space in Hell, his dream at last consummated.

The Constitution had culminated in the logical extension of its organizing principle as an enabling mechanism for central government supremacy.  The Constitution is a brilliant document for liberty but the Federalists ensured that a doomsday mechanism was built into the document by empowering the government through an alleged impartial judiciary to have a self-selected stamp of approval on the march for bigger government.  Keep in mind that the Bill of Rights was a reluctant addition to the original Constitution at the urging and agitation of the Anti-Federalists and has acted as a minor roadblock to statist ambition, at best. The American Imperial Age had just slipped into high gear.

The United Kingdom in the 20th century is an historical demonstration project that whatever empire practices abroad, it all comes home to roost and individual liberties are extinguished to satisfy the collective needs of the state.  The lethal cocktail of Fabian socialism and imperial military foreign policy culminated in what is now the late and great corpse of England, both the birthplace and gravesite of the modern Western notion of individual liberty.  Ironically, America up until 1939, retained War Plan Red against the United Kingdom as an active strategic initiative against our alleged ally.

Despite the apparent historic isolationism of the American government during what is referred to as the Interwar Years (1919-1941), the American armed forces were rather busy implementing the weaponized portion of foreign policy especially in the Latin American realm.  This was, of course, prior to the formalization of clandestine regime change in the CIA and its offshoots.  On the eve of WWII, the US Army was numerically ranked well below the world nations in manpower.  RedDR was mostly likely rubbing his hands in glee at the prospect of taking over and controlling what was left of economy at the time after the disastrous attempts at socialism that had ensued and crippled the country in the 1930s.

War abroad has always been the last refuge of the state when all other options have met with failure when seeking to consolidate domestic power. America discovered that the surest path to increased monopoly on power is perpetual war.  Witness the motifs in the War on Drugs, Poverty and Terror and the concomitant expenditure of untold hundreds of billions resulting in the eradication of none of the former but a tremendous increase in government power over citizens.

Whatever you learned in the government schools and university, on the History Channel and the ninety plus years of Hollywood celebrations of American war on the world…you have been lied to.  War is the health and the wealth of the state.

Copyright @ 2009 by William Buppert.